Whale tangled in fishing debris freed in Sydney Harbour

One of the world’s busiest harbors became the scene of a dramatic rescue operation Friday after a young humpback whale was spotted with fishing gear tangled around its tail.

Rescuers were first alerted to the 13-meter whale in Sydney Harbour on Thursday afternoon when volunteer rescue group ORRCA received a call on its rescue hotline.

Crews from the New South Wales large whale disentanglement team took up the chase and attached a GPS tracker to the whale, but the device fell off soon after.

The operation paused overnight when the sun went down, but the whale was spotted again in the harbor early Friday morning and the chase resumed.

Local media streamed live video from a helicopter circling overhead as the rescuers tried to get close enough to cut the gear loose. Video showed the whale’s dark silhouette beneath the water, as it popped up occasionally to thrash its tail.

“The challenge with that whale was that it had so much energy,” said disentanglement team leader Luke McSweeney. “It took quite a long time for us to tire it out so that we could get in and do that cut safely.”